Saturday, March 29, 2008

Banco Fire destroys 34 acres in Tomé

Kenn Rodriguez News-Bulletin Staff Writer; krodriguez@news-bulletin.com

Tomé Laura Cliff of Tomé said she knew something was going on near her home on Don Luis Road when she heard trucks driving from N.M. 47 and down Silva Road around midnight Wednesday night.

"It woke me up; I guess it was the fire crews going toward the river," she said.

It was Valencia County fire crews preparing to fight the Banco Fire, which was reported Wednesday around 11:40 p.m. according to Valencia County Fire Chief Charles Eaton.

Cliff and her boyfriend, Mike Hanes, kept vigil all night long after seeing embers from the fire begin to land on her backyard deck.

"We started having hail-sized ambers hitting our deck and going underneath the deck," she said. "And it was beautiful. You know fire is pretty, although it's dangerous. We had just irrigated the pasture and the lawn, so we were OK with that. And my barn is tin, but I hadn't cleaned my corral so I was afraid some of the embers would get in the corrals and they would go up."

Cliff spent most of the night awake, and she received the notice that she and Hanes may need to evacuate, but the call never came and fire crews were able to keep the fire from spreading.

Four fire departments in Valencia County ended up battling the Banco Fire overnight Thursday. The fire was sparked near Banco Road in Los Chavez on the west side of the Rio Grande, and embers from the fire quickly spread to the east side of the river where it did most of its damage.

Valencia County Fire Chief Charles Eaton said approximately 40 acres had been burned by the fire - six acres on the west side of the Rio Grande and 34 acres on the east side of the river. An inmate crew from the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility managed by the New Mexico State Department of Forestry assisted area firefighters in containing the fire Thursday and Friday.

As of Friday at 2 p.m., Eaton said the fire was "80 to 85 percent contained" and that the State Forestry Department, which came in to lead fire fighting efforts late Thursday morning, had turned the fire back over to Valencia County Fire officials.

"The report we got this morning told us that we'd advanced quite a bit in terms of extinguishing the fire," he said. "We'll be monitoring and visiting the site on a regular basis until feel we can call it out, per se."

Eaton said the fire originated on the west side at around 11:20 p.m. Wednesday night and residents nearby called the Los Chavez Fire Department, which was immediately dispatched to the site near Banco Road and Camino de Los Chavez.

He said Deputy Chief Bryan Culp arrived on the west side and immediately dispatched units from Rio Grande Estates to support LCFD on the Westside in suppressing the fire.

About 45 minutes later, crews from the Tomé-Adelino and Peralta departments were put on stand-by and arrived on the east side, about a mile west of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Tomé.

"Soon they were fighting the fire as well," said Eaton.

"Within 10 minutes of their arrival we did see a spot fire on this side of the river," he said. "We had breezes about five to 10 miles per hour coming out of the west, and it helped carry the fire and intensify the fire."

Eaton said a total of 35 firefighters tried on several occasions to create a firebreak, but the flames were so intense the fire kept jumping the break.

"Finally, around 5 o'clock in the morning, we were able to get a firebreak on the north side, and then on the south side it kind of burned itself out," Eaton said.

Shifting winds throughout the night made fighting the fire more difficult, he said.

"When it was doing that, we were somewhat concerned because we have some residents who sit over here next to the bosque," he said. "So we actually made contact with them and told them if the winds really change and it starts coming toward their homes we're probably going to ask them to evacuate."

"But we just put them on notice; we didn't actually go through with an evacuation," Eaton said.

One firefighter was taken to an Albuquerque hospital overnight Thursday due to exhaustion and smoke inhalation, but Eaton said she was recovering and was released from the hospital Thursday afternoon.

"She's doing fine now," Eaton said. "She was quite tired. She overexerted herself and then with the amount of smoke she took in."

Eaton said the fire was 40 percent contained by 10 a.m. Thursday and by 3:30 that afternoon, the fire was 50 percent contained due to easterly winds that kicked up shortly after noontime.

Eaton said Friday afternoon that investigators had confirmed the origin of the fire near Banco Road but had not yet determined how the fire started. He said it could be three or four days before investigators could find that information out.

For her part, Laura Cliff said the response of Valencia County firefighters was excellent.

"A lot of people could've gotten hurt, but I have to give my kudos to the fire department," she said. "They came through, and they prepared and kept it under control. I was totally amazed. I had already gone out and gotten the hoses ready, and I didn't need them because they did such a good job.

E-mail this story Printer-friendly version